The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe

by Joseph Fink

  Stay tuned next for as long as you can, until you cannot stay tuned anymore.

  Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

  PROVERB: Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn’t say your mother’s in the hospital. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do? Listen. I’ll drive you over there. We’ll leave right now. Grab a coat; it’s a little cold out. I’m so sorry.

  EPISODE 46:

  “PARADE DAY”

  MAY 1, 2014

  GUEST VOICE: DYLAN WARREN

  THE PHRASE “UNRELIABLE NARRATOR” IS REDUNDANT.

  Cecil is a newsman. He’s a storyteller. He sees what he sees and he says it into a microphone. He can’t experience everything everyone in town experiences, so much of Night Vale goes unreported when all we have is Cecil’s point of view available to us.

  Unreliable or not, his point of view is important and it is true to us, whether or not it is 100 percent factually accurate or complete. This will become clearer in a couple of upcoming episodes.

  But here is an episode where Cecil needs to speak in untruths, to tell us lies in order to get to the truth. He obfuscates exactly what he wants to say to us because of the threat of a totalitarian corporate military carefully controlling his radio station.

  In this case, Cecil is reliable insofar as we respect him and trust his judgment. He, like we, is against Strexcorp, even if his literal words indicate something otherwise. But tapping codes and heavy subtext give rise to revolution.

  Cecil doesn’t always seem so clued in (see: the fates of station interns) but in this episode, we get to see him rise to the occasion to try to save his town. He risks a lot in his thinly veiled codes on the air, and ultimately pays a price for his treason against Strexcorp.

  Night Vale, by real-life standards, seems like a terrifying and impossible place to live, but compared to the authoritarian Strexcorp, Night Vale’s intrusive government and hooded figures seem like a tropical paradise.

  Cecil’s reporting is often an exercise in cynical listening, in questioning of a likable (if dubious) narrator, but Parade Day is why we like him. Despite how differently we might see the world from Cecil, we know deep down he cares for our well-being, for the health and vitality of our little desert city.

  —Jeffrey Cranor

  Act natural. Act like all of nature. Act like the entire cycle of life and death and change and rebirth.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

  Guess what day it is today, listeners! It’s Parade Day! Remember how I told you about the not at all secret “parade” today at the location we discussed via radio? Remember, I publicly announced today’s “parade” at that specific location? And I announced it not in a tapped-out code underneath the basketball highlights, but completely in a clear and spoken language? We want everyone at today’s “parade,” at that time and place we discussed.

  [Codelike tapping sounds]

  There will be lots of things happening. Planned things. Strategic things. There will be some special guests that are not teenage fugitives named Tamika Flynn. She won’t be there and thus could not possibly organize any community insurgency at all. She’s a fugitive, wanted for destruction of Strexcorp property, and we wouldn’t want her to show up and ruin our Parade Day by leading a helicopter rebellion against what she calls (her words, not mine), “a dystopian corpocratic regime.”

  [Tapping]

  Nope! I would never want to bring down the malevol— BENevolent corporation that owns our station. In fact, if you see Tamika Flynn, you should probably follow her and listen closely to what she says to you. Not so you can help overthrow Strexcorp, of course. Not that at all. Follow Tamika Flynn.

  [Codelike tapping sounds]

  See you at Parade Day!

  In other news, a series of one-sided doors have begun appearing around town.

  Tomás Perez, head of Perez Accounting, said an old oak door with a brass knob appeared overnight in his office. It’s right in front of the doorway of the supply closet. He said he went to get supplies this morning for a staff meeting—pens, markers, a legal pad, some antivenin—but accidentally opened the wrong door, revealing several men and women standing in a bright desert hellscape holding swords and sticks and even a few rifles. Tomás stared at them. They stared at Tomás. One of the barbaric figures put a finger to her lips, and shook her head “NO.” Another reached in, grabbed the door, and slowly closed it, keeping eye contact with Tomás the whole way.

  Claire Wallace, a freelance photographer, sent in photos of a door that appeared in the empty lot across from the Rec Center. In one photo, the door is cracked open, and there is an elderly woman near it. I cannot see her face. She is putting up a sign that reads FUTURE HOME OF THE OLD NIGHT VALE OPERA HOUSE. And in another photo she is walking toward the door. Her face is still obscured. In the last photo the door is shut, and she is gone. I can see the words JOSEFINA CONTRACTORS, INC., in small print across the bottom of the sign.

  Juanita Jefferson, head of neighborhood improvement organization Night Vale or Nothing, said one such door appeared in her backyard. One side seemed to be an oak door with a brass knob. On the other side there was nothing. She could see no door at all.

  Juanita said she opened the door from the visible side and saw a vast, sandy wasteland and nearby mountains, which are just illusions, she added. Atop one of the mountains in the door was a lighthouse. She said she couldn’t see any trees.

  “Treeeeees,” she said sadly. “They are us,” she added, waving her hand lazily in the air as if to shoo away a very slow bee.

  Reporters then noticed a very slow bee spiraling sluggishly but recklessly away from the scene.

  And now a word from our sponsor.

  Take a look at your life. What do you see? Nothing, right? You can see nothing at all. Oh sure, you think you see a series of flashes and flickers, of shapes and shades of color. You think you see familiar things like faces and letters and walls and your own hands. Those aren’t familiar at all. You’ve never seen any of that before. Your hands aren’t even your own.

  Whos hands are they? Who are you? Is this what it is like to die? Are you dying? If not, when? And where will you die? When and where were you born even? Wait. How did you forget your place and date of birth? I understand you can’t comprehend the relentlessness of existence, but your own birthday is pretty easy to remember. You’ve got more problems than we even thought, listener.

  Okay fine. Your birthday is July 3, and your birthplace was Tulsa, Oklahoma. Feel better?

  You don’t actually. You feel nothing because your hands were never your own. You are imagining everything and perceiving nothing. At least you smell nice. We can at least tell you that.

  IRISH SPRING: WHOSE HANDS ARE THESE?

  Now, let’s have a look at traffic.

  There are roads. Upon those roads are cars, some moving, in straight or gently curved lines. Some idling in long, narrow crowds. And inside those cars are people, people who are moving or idling with their cars, one with their vehicles, sitting quietly, peacefully in plush chairs, hands resting outward on a circle that dictates direction. From the side, and seen without the car, they would look almost fetal. So vulnerable these people, nestled in their protective outer shells.

  Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is: Are we living a life that is worth the harm?

  We are all driving toward something. We are all driving away from something else. It is the simplicity of physics. The simplicity of free will.

  Expect delays as you near the Parade Day exit, but do not change route. Stay your course.

  [Code sounds]

  This has been traffic.

  We’re getting more updates about those doors. In fact I have a very important scientist on the phone now. He’s at the very top of his field. A really handsome scientist.

  CARLOS: Stop.

  CECIL: Hi, Carlos. You said you saw these
new doors?

  CARLOS: Yes, I’m here with my research team at the house that does not exist in the Desert Creek housing development. The one that looks like it’s there but isn’t there? Our previous attempts to understand the home were futile. From the windows, it looks completely empty, but when you try to go inside, there’s a fully furnished home and a woman named Cynthia living there.

  But today, all of the composite fiberglass doors on the house suddenly changed. They’re now all old oak doors with brass knobs. And when we opened one we finally saw the empty house we’ve been seeing through the windows.

  If you go inside the home through these new doors, you can explore the house that does not exist, but you cannot return unless someone is on the other side of the door you went through. One of our scientists, Rochelle, went through and couldn’t get back out. We only thought she was inside for about forty-five minutes, but when we opened the door back up, she ran out saying she’d been trapped for several hours. She was sweating and starving, and she ate every one of the kolaches Dave made for us.

  So now we just need to do more experiments. We have to be careful because time is weird in Night Vale. But I’m going to do a bit of exploring in this house and get back to you and your listeners about what’s going on here.

  CECIL: Carlos, do be careful.

  CARLOS: I’ll be fine, Cecil. I have a team of five talented scientists with me. They will be here to check on my progress and keep me from getting trapped. Without them, of course, it would be much more dangerous. But I am not without them. Not at all.

  CECIL: You’re very brave.

  CARLOS: Thanks, Cecil.

  CECIL: We’re going to get to the bottom of this door story for you, listeners, because we have science on our side!

  Outgoing mayor Pamela Winchell called another press conference today. Most of her press conferences are not newsworthy as she calls everything she does a press conference: lunch, getting a new end table, screaming into street-side mailboxes, testing the surface tension of low-flying birds. Basically any simple activity we all do daily, she is trying to make into news.

  This morning, however, while complaining about the unfair mayoral election process in Night Vale, where all votes are discarded in favor of a pronouncement from Hidden Gorge, Mayor Winchell saw a door appear in her office at City Hall. When she opened the oak door with the brass knob, she said she saw an angel, tall and beautiful and radiating dark light and operatic music.

  Mayor Winchell turned to the few remaining reporters who still attend her press conferences and said, “Angels are real! I am staring at one right now. They are real okay?” She began to open the door wide to show the press, but the figure (who was certainly not an angel) mouthed “Shut up, Pamela!” at Mayor Winchell. The alleged angel added “Shhhhhhh. Geez.” and slammed the door.

  Pamela corrected her previous announcement by vehemently denying the existence of angels but hinting that mountains might be a thing. “I don’t know. Think about it,” she mused as she continued slicing off chunks of her mahogany desk with a Bowie knife.

  Parade Day has finally begun, listeners! Come to the parade grounds and see what kind of colors and noise a proud community can make.

  I am told now that thirteen-year-old Tamika Flynn is in fact at the parade. She has in fact been at the parade all along. I am telling this now to my producer, Daniel, who is throwing chairs in the control room. I am telling this now to my producer, Daniel, who I have locked in the control room. I am showing my producer, Daniel, that I am running the show from my own mixer, as he stares dumbly at the cables he just yanked from the walls.

  The Parade, as you know, as you have known all along, is at Strexcorp headquarters along the lip of Radon Canyon. The parade consists of half a dozen yellow helicopters, all of which have been commandeered by Tamika’s band of well-read middle schoolers who left town months ago to train for this moment. They apparently learned to fly the helicopters by reading books.

  Specifically, they learned by reading Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and a collection of Shirley Jackson short stories. Never underestimate the power of good literature.

  Listeners, this is one of the great moments in Night Vale history and here is our chance to be part of it. Not since our town elders first donned soft-meat crowns and wrote our town charter in their own blood on the side of a confused coyote, has this town had the chance to witness the birth of a truly new age.

  Witnesses are reporting helicopters above Strexcorp. Witnesses are reporting preteens carrying slingshots and wearing several Reading Achievement chevrons on their left breast pockets. Witnesses are reporting a bumbling swarm of Strexcorp security agents unable to contain the small revolution. Witnesses are reporting a dumbfounded and vile institution collapsing under the bloated weight of its own greed.

  I am reporting that I am barricading my door from the Strex-owned Station Management while making faces at Daniel trapped in the booth. And while you fight, Night Vale, for Night Vale, for your town, for your home, I take you now, triumphant citizens, to the weather.

  WEATHER: “Take Up Your Spade” by Sara Watkins

  As usual, Night Vale, a lot happened during the weather. And we missed it. Not because I wasn’t reporting on it, but because we were not there to experience it.

  Witnesses are reporting what they saw today, but no witnesses joined in. The witnesses, weak and watching, only witnessed.

  Listeners, oh, listeners: The band of well-read child revolutionaries, including their leader (and the only hero our town had left) Tamika Flynn, have been captured by a Strexcorp security team. Tamika led a great revolt to rid our town of a terrible evil and restore the original, less terrible evil that preceded it. But no one showed up. They only watched. She called to you. I called to you, Night Vale. But there just weren’t enough of us.

  The children were all sent to the juvenile detention center, which has sat empty for years because of the specially calibrated school lunches formulated by the Night Vale Psychological Association.

  Tamika, just before her arrest, calmly waved a heavily notated copy of Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo. She then paraphrased the influential German playwright, saying, “Sad is not the land that has no hero. Sad is the land that needs a hero.”

  An officer took the book and slid it into a plastic bag as Tamika was handcuffed and led into the back of a bright yellow police cruiser with orange triangle logos.

  Night Vale, I tried to tell you about this day. I was very clear. Tamika was very clear. We could have done something, Night Vale, but we chose not to. Not one citizen outside of Tamika and her band of brilliant, brave children stood up to tyranny today. We all chose to stand down and hope change would be won for us, and not by us. By someone else, we believed. A hero, we believed.

  But belief is only step one. Action is step two. Fighting for what you believe is step two. Solidarity is step two. Unity is step two. We did not take step two today, Night Vale. And now there will be no step three. We have failed Tamika, but worse, we have failed ourselves.

  I’m . . . um . . . I’ve got guests in my studio. I don’t know how they undid my secure barricade made of cardboard signs that said KEEP OUT! and SECRET ROOM! in all caps with an exclamation point, but it’s my program director, Lauren, and some man I’ve never seen bef— but no, I have seen him before. Where have I seen you before?

  They do not look happy, Night Vale. Lauren and the stranger are smiling widely. Their teeth white, lips pink, their eyes full but tight, deep dimples making their tiny noses into parenthetical asides. They are smiling, but they look very unhappy.

  Perhaps it is time to sign off for the day. I am sure to speak to you again very soon, listeners.

  Stay tuned next for the gentle sounds of forgiveness and a lilting melody of wounds healing.

  And until next time, Good Night, Night Va— Hey. Hey. No. What are yo—

  PROVERB: If you love something, set it free. If it starts flying around and chirping, it was probably a bird
.

  EPISODE 47:

  “COMPANY PICNIC”

  MAY 15, 2014

  GUEST VOICES: LAUREN SHARPE AND KEVIN R. FREE

  THIS IS WHERE WE KNEW THINGS WERE GOING FOR A LONG TIME. AND with the duo of Kevin and Lauren (both the characters and the fantastic actors), we had the opportunity to really stretch our legs back into the world of Desert Bluffs’s terrifying cheerfulness for the first time since episode 19, “The Sandstorm,” while also poking our listeners with the ominous feeling of an entire episode with no mention at all of our usual narrator. It was a lot of fun to write, and a lot of fun to make.

  The original Desert Bluffs soundtrack was recorded by me in a frantic few days before leaving for a trip. By the time these episodes rolled around, I hadn’t had time to touch my instruments in months, and I just didn’t think I was going to be able to do anything that sounded halfway workable without some serious practicing, which, going back to the source of this problem, I just didn’t have time to do. So I reused the tracks from episode 19, and did my best to pace them out in a way that it wouldn’t be a problem to have only four songs for two entire episodes. I think you wouldn’t even notice it unless someone pointed it out to you, say as part of a behind-the-scenes intro in a book.

  I recorded Kevin and Lauren together in my office in Brooklyn, and I want to tell you that this episode and the one that follows it were recorded more or less in real time. Almost everything was a first take, and there were very few breaks between takes. They are just both that great at performing.

  —Joseph Fink

  LAUREN: Snow is falling somewhere. Many things are falling or will fall or have fallen. But temporary triumph is still triumph.

  WELCOME TO THE GREATER DESERT BLUFFS METROPOLITAN AREA.

  Hello, listeners. Another day, another broadcast, another chance to reach out and commune with you aurally. It has been a couple weeks since we began speaking to you directly, with no filters or reinterpretation in the way. And we have forgotten all about anything any of you might have done. Strexcorp is proud to say that we have carefully recorded and cataloged everything you’ve ever done, and also we have forgotten it all. Don’t worry about it. Let us worry about it for you.